To Dallas, to Sacramento, and back

You've probably heard by now that the California State Supreme Court ruled that California voters could alter their Constitution to ban same sex marriage. You may not have heard about "The Dallas Principles", which were released about two days before that ruling. But while some activists I know are bemoaning the former and hailing the latter, none seem to be paying attention to the fact that the seeds of failure sown in the former are now full grown.

Post-mortems on Prop. 8 all point out that the Mormon Church and Evangelical groups poured money into the battle to ban same-sex marriage. These groups did exactly what they'd be expected to do - they pointed to their scriptures and said that their morality forced them to work for passing Prop. 8. From what I can tell, the response from the equality side of the battle was, "Well, we don't think your religion should have a place in this debate." That approach ceded the historically high Black voter turnout, and let Prop. 8 win.

What was missing from the Prop. 8 battle is banned outright by the Dallas Principles. Point 4 reads: "Religious beliefs are not a basis upon which to affirm or deny civil rights." What was simply ignored in California is now antagonistically targeted in Texas. Sorry, but I don't see how this is supposed to help anything.

My friends on the left argue that Jefferson's "Wall of Separation" of church and state should preclude faith-based arguments on governmental issues. I think Jefferson would be apalled by such arguments. Not only does Jefferson's Declaration of Independence name the "Creator" as the source of civil rights, but under his advice, the Marquis de Lafayette wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizens, which includes the statement: "No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law." Even Jefferson's 1777 "Virginia Bill to Establish Religious Freedom" was primarily concerned with ensuring people of faith could have full access to the public sphere - not in gagging that faith in discussion of public law.

Jefferson, and his contemporaries, never meant to prevent any person from speaking openly of their faith. Democracy, after all, places the power of making law in the hands of the people. Whatever the source of the people's morality, both individually and in the aggregate, it should not ever be divorced from the exercise of that power. Honestly, are we going to call on our government to make laws in the total absence of an understanding of wrong and right?

I understand what is leading activists to make these arguments - gay people have had religion used as a bludgeon to destroy their lives, their families, and even their sense of self. It is natural for them to look at the language of faith as "the language of the enemy." But our republic exists to haul men up from their knee-jerk reactions and to move them to more thoughtful and deliberative action.

The California court did not get it wrong. It is not an endorsement of the law itself to say that those who support it have a strong legal foundation for the manner in which they acted. I think it was bad strategy to try and have a Constitutional amendment overturned as being unconstitutional (such a thing is simply impossible - passing an amendment makes the amendment Constitutional). Such strategy - both the legal case against an amendment and the decision to cut religion out of the debate - is born of the same lack of faith in democracy that Barack Obama cites in his The Audacity of Hope when discussing the desire to have the courts vindicate "not only our rights but our values."

The Dallas Principles means to say that no specific religion should dictate what our laws say. I agree. Unfortunately, what it says is that anyone whose beliefs are rooted in religion should not speak about how those beliefs support specific issues (or not). That is an attempt to short-circuit democracy by controlling the ground upon which the public debate is had. It is an attempt to undercut the opposition by making the ground upon which they stand off-limits.

In a country where the vast majority of people profess to believe in God, this is not a winning strategy. Worse, the sword cuts both ways (as the authors ensure). People, like me, whose faith dictates that they fight against the marginalization of all people are now also out-of-bounds. If same-sex marriage activists could muster an impressive and overwhelming voting majority; then this might be understandable.

This strategy has already be tested. Prop. 8 showed it a failure. We can't fight for equality by claiming that one group's basis for equality isn't good enough to speak openly. We can't tear down the walls of separation and discrimination by seeking to build new ones. We are defined by our means as much as we are by the ends.